


Bittersweet

by Army C (arh581958)



Series: #GallavichWeek [2]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Day 2 - Angst, Feedback appreciated, Feelings, Feels, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, From denial of feelings to acceptance of feelings, Future Fic, GW2016, M/M, Mickey being emotionally constipated, Mickey loves Ian so freaking much, Mickey ponderings, Mickey!Feels, Mickey-centric, Retrospective Perspective, Season 6 Compliant, Twisted and Fluffy Feelings, character growth/development, inside the head of Mickey Milkovich, let me take you on an emotional rollercoaster, mickey being mickey, our little mickey mouse is growing up, support the insecure writer, that is Mickey Milkovich
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-07-24 17:45:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7517485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arh581958/pseuds/Army%20C
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before Ian, Mickey never used to have a word to describe love. Hell, he never knew what love meant half the time, and for more than half his life, he thought it was only a construct of fairytales—a lie told to children to make them think that the place was a whole lot better than it really was, an invention made by old queens spun to make their sex life more meaningful, a myth that doesn’t truly exist in the plane of real life. </p><p>He thought of love and saw Ian Gallagher.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bittersweet

**Author's Note:**

> Part 2 to my GallavichWeek2016 Series. Day 2 - Angst. 
> 
> This one is pretty much a character study of Mickey between Seasons 1 to 601. It was very, very, painful to write. I might have shed a few tears while writing. It's not my typical style but I felt like experimenting this week to see where it gets me. This work is also not beta read. So, if any mistakes are too obvious, please feel free to tell me in the comments. :)
> 
>  _Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails._ (1 Corinthians 13:4)
> 
> **Not Beta Read. Open for Volunteers.**

Before Ian, Mickey never used to have a word to describe love. Hell, he never knew what love meant half the time, and for more than half his life, he thought it was only a construct of fairytales—a lie told to children to make them think that the place was a whole lot better than it really was, an invention made by old queens spun to make their sex life more meaningful, a myth that doesn’t truly exist in the plane of real life.

That’s what Mickey thought, then came Ian and turned all that over his head.

Ian Gallagher.

Redhead. Pale. Freckled.

Kind. Innocent. Naïve.

Willful. Stubborn. Hardheaded.

_“Gallagher’s spelled with two L’s.”_

Two Ls.

Mickey’ll never run out of words to describe _his_ Gallagher, even if he spells it wrong. None of the words in his vocabulary, even if he uses it all, can ever be enough. It’ll never be enough. He’ll never be enough but he can’t take it back. It’s already written across his chest, missing an L.

Ian Galagher.

The biggest heart.

The strongest moral.

The most emotional.

This thing, this whole thing—the falling in-love thing—just proved that he wasn’t meant for good things.

It’s why he avoided the whole thing since the beginning.

He wasn’t meant for love.

Mickey spent five years avoiding it, denying it, hiding from it. He was the scared little fucker who couldn’t even come out to himself, let alone anyone else. He would never admit it. He would never say it aloud. He could never come clean—except he had for that one single person.

Ian Gallagher.

He got it now that it’s spelled with two Ls instead of just one. He wasn’t perfect. He can’t cover up his mistakes just like he can’t cover up the misspelled last name of his tattoo. He had to bear it, needs to, because it’s a permanent thing that he can’t erase, or forget, or regret. It’s there written over his heart just like the person it symbolizes resides within it.

Mickey’s never thought about love before Ian Gallagher walked into his life, squeezes between the cracks in his façade and crawled under his skin, inside his mind, and at the center of his heart. It’s mushy shit that he bothered to think about before, never had time to, never _could_ —but now he did, he had all the time in the world for all his fifteen-year sentence, or eight if there’s overcrowding.

Now, he thought of love, and when did all he can see was Ian.

Ian smiling.

Ian laughing.

Ian joking around.

Mickey saw it all, remembered it all.

The scared look on Ian’s face when threatens to fuck him up.

The half-passive frown when Mickey used to steal at _Kash &Grab_.

The red-flushed cheeks that very first time Mickey straddled him.

The same winded look right after sex whenever he took a ‘leak break’ from studying with Mandy.

The fear, panic, and _worry_ when Mickey was bleeding from Kash’s bullet.

The stupid puppy dog eyes that time from his first visit to Mickey in Juvie.

Back then, Ian had been a lanky thirteen-year-old with the brightest ideas of the world despite being a kid living in the Southside of Chicago, having a drunk-as father and a worthless runaway mom, and the chaos of the Gallagher household. He held onto those views for as long as he can. He tried his best. He really did.

Sometimes, Mickey missed that dopey faced kid. He knows things now. He knows that look in Ian’s eyes. It said too much to be exposed like that, even back then, especially back then. If anybody else knew Ian as well as he did now, they wouldn’t have survived this long, couldn’t have been able to hide as long as they did, wouldn’t have been a secret. Terry would have caught then earlier.

In many ways, they’re lucky that Mickey didn’t.

Or else, he might have touched Ian’s hand over the glass.

They’re lucky that nobody knew back then.

Mickey remembered Ian at fourteen, remembered all of it—but it’s a blur of fucks, panics, and fuck-ups. Underneath it all, after everything, Mickey remembered the way their bodies fit, the way _his body_ changed to accommodate Ian’s in more ways than one. He remembered being loose-limbed, loose and gaping, after every fuck, on the cold benches of the dug out or in the walk-in freezer.

All those times.

Ian inside him, behind him, never in front.

He remembered the fear that came crashing over his head like ice water when Frank caught them in the act. Hot white fear ran through his veins, clouded his judgement, make him weak. At the time, he thought protected them—their secret—was the most important thing to do.

But then it changed.

One look from Ian, one plea, one simple word, made him change his mind. Despite his brain telling him to go ahead and do it, to pull the trigger, to kill Frank, his heart told him otherwise. That night something changed, even if he was too young, too stupid, to fucked in the head to realize it. Something had changed inside him because, suddenly, _Ian_ became the most important thing.

He didn’t kill Frank _because Ian asked him not to_.

Looking back, he realizes how much Ian meant to him that early on when his younger self didn’t notice it. He knows better now. The annoying green monster which comes out every single time he saw Ian with someone else—fucking someone else—makes so much more sense because he knows better.

He hated every single one of them—all the guys that Ian fucked when he was away in Juvie or while he was hiding inside his own head. Younger him had acted on instinct by beating the shit out of every single one. Reason or no reason, Ian was his and no one else’s.

The second time he came back from Juvie, he did exactly that out of the ROTC kid for taking it up the ass the way that _only_ he should. Ian’s cock belongs to him. Even then, without noticing it, his body changed _for Ian_ _alone_. It never felt as good fucking anyone as well as it did when fucking Ian, taking it from Ian, being filled by Ian.

Mickey wanted Ian, and Ian alone.

He’ll do almost anything, change almost anything, be almost anything.

Even if, back then, he couldn’t do it all at the same time.

He did so in increments.

Stopped fucking girls.

Stopped Ian from fucking other people.

Stopped being a pussy.

Started kissing Ian.

Started spending time without fucking first.

Started it—all of it—letting himself fall.

Mickey changed _because_ of Ian Gallagher.

There were days when he barely recalls how it was like without the redhead constantly by his side. Then, there were days when all of that haunts him. He remembered thing—a lot of things, bad memories, bitter memories, better-off-forgotten memories—that should be kept in a box and buried six-feet under. Most of all, he remembered how _stupid_ he had been as a kid, barely past his teens.

Terry.

Svetlana.

The army.

Those said when Ian suddenly disappeared to god-knows-where using his brother’s name to enlist a year early. It wreaked Mickey. It made him realize how far _gone_ he was for the middle Gallagher. It scared him shitless at the time to the point that he almost ran away. He didn’t though, because Ian had done that already, and a part of him wanted to still be in the Southside if Ian ever came back.

Ian came back broken and wrong.

Mickey thinks back and tries to pinpoint where he could have done things differently.

He could have run away from Terry, with Ian, when they were caught.

He could have talked to Ian the day after.

He could have said no and _not_ gotten through with the wedding.

He could have, but he didn’t.

He couldn’t admit that he was gay.

He _should have_ chased Ian the very same day.

Maybe then, maybe if he’d been strong enough, Ian wouldn’t have spiraled out of control, wouldn’t have ended as a drugged-up dancer in golden booty-shorts in fairytale, wouldn’t have _left_ at all. If Ian stayed, that’s a delusional thought, but if Ian stayed then things might have been different.

But all those things happened and Mickey’s fantasies were _just_ fantasies.

Ian came back, and Mickey promised to do anything to make him stay.

Hummers—anytime, anywhere.

Fucking—any and all positions.

Kissing—in public where anyone can see.

On the night of Yev’s baptismal, Mickey came out to his father, to his family, to everyone in attendance, just a few months after he got married. He told the world that he liked dicks and taking up the ass like some kind of bitch, but that didn’t _make_ him a bitch for liking what he liked. He admitted that he liked sucking _Ian’s_ dick best of all, but secretly because it’s the only dick he’s ever sucked at all.

He never wanted anyone else.

Deep down, he knew that was when he first admitted, even if only to himself, that he loved Ian Gallagher.

Love meant things, things that Mickey wasn’t wholly prepared for but accepted. It had its good and bad, ups and downs, pros and cons. It had its happy moments despite the sad ones, the lighter days after all the bad, the ones he wanted to remember through everything else that he didn’t.

Ian and love.

Mickey never believed in that those two things could ever go together, to even exist and be allowed to exist to make enough memories to hold onto when he needed to get through tough times.

Being in-love, for Mickey, meant being with Ian.

Ian, and breakfast with Yev and Svetlana in the Milkovich house with or without Mandy or his brothers.

Ian picking them up from a moving-van scam, smelling smoke because they shared a bed, and waking up with wrestling matches that was really just a prelude to really good morning sex.

Ian, and his weird sense of brotherhood despite his fraudulent papers.

It’s weird and fun.

And, for a long time, it’s good, better than anything Mickey ever expected.

It’s also the first sign that Mickey refused to see.

Love meant understanding. Understanding that Ian was a guy too, and that a mouth was a mouth, a hole was a hole, and a hummer was a hummer, even if it wasn’t Mickey. It hurt but Mickey understood the cheating, the lying, and the secrets. He forced himself not to care, thinking at the time, quite naively, that it all didn’t matter as long as Ian came home to him.

It’s great for some time, as normal as they could ever be.

Mickey wished that those days never ended—random cleaning sprees, random _brilliant_ ideas, random bubbles of happiness. At the time, he didn’t appreciate that joy for what it was—a gift, a blessing, a miracle in itself that two fags in the Southside got to experience—a semblance of norsmalcy.

An illusion was all it was. It couldn’t last, and it didn’t. Eventually, Mickey saw the wrongness in the man he loved. It made him feel sick to the stomach, worse than any drunken hangover from an alcohol binge without eating. It twisted his stomach into knots, inside out, like acid scrapped his intestine walls.

Mickey knew better than to let Ian go.

This time, he held on.

Love meant acceptance. Accepting Ian meant that that he needed Ian to accept himself. He tried. God, he tried, everything and anything, but he tried _too hard_. He squeezed until it hurt and ended up suffocating Ian, pushing him away instead of nearer, closing him off instead of letting him inside.

It’s wrong, so wrong.

He ended up beating up the asshole who thought that he could fuck _his Ian_ , and ended up on the police radar again. He ended up fucking up, being short on money for utilities and forcing Ian to do a porno. If Mickey were a smarter, wiser, man before, he would have read-up on Ian’s disorder _before_ it became a problem, before the symptoms became too much, before it made Ian into a completely different person—a person Mickey didn’t know anymore.

Loving Ian was hard. It meant loving past Ian, present Ian, and hoping for a future Ian. It was hard, and painful, and a struggle every day to get Ian to take his meds. It meant pushing past all those—of Ian’s willfulness, stubbornness, and hardheadedness—and make him take his meds, make him be better before he could spiral down to Monica’s hole.

Mickey watched Ian break.

When Ian broke, so did Mickey. It broke his heart to watch Ian enter the state facility with his shoulder slumped, his hair a mess, and a desolate look on his face.

Mickey knew Ian needed help, and that he couldn’t be that help because he didn’t understand bipolarity and what it meant. For Ian, he needed to let go of his pride and admit that he wasn’t enough to help his Gallagher get better. Ian needed professional help, and Mickey would be damned if anything got in the way of that—even if it was him.

Older but not wiser, Mickey stayed away when Ian needed him the most.

Loving Ian was the bravest thing he ever did. It meant forgiveness—of himself, of Ian’s mistakes.

Mickey hoped that he wasn’t too late when he finally got his head out of his ass and came back. He changed. A younger him would have stayed away but he _stayed_. He stayed with Ian through the night, listening to their breathing sync up but never really sleeping. He could have said the words he wanted to say back then but a part of him was still afraid.

That was the night that he first realized how much he had changed.

Apparently, so did Ian.

Ian, who from the tender age of fourteen, fifteen, or sixteen had told Mickey that he loved him.

Ian knew of love, believed in love, wanted love, even if all those he loved fucked up in love.

Ian wanted Mickey, and Mickey alone, for the piece of Southside trash that he was from then to now.

Love and Ian was a very complicated thing.

Mickey used to not like complicated things but even that changed too.

When Ian left, Mickey felt abandoned for the second time in his life. He thought, for a long time, that he deserved it too. Ian wasn’t the first one to leave. It was his mother, who left so long ago that he barely remembered her face. Lucky him that he didn’t have to because he remembered _Ian’s face_.

He remembered Ian with soft baby roundness to the sharp adolescent features, the gangly all-limbs pre-teen to the lithe ripped post-army dancer, the somewhat shy boy to the confident nearly-adult. He remembered all of that when Ian left.

God, he missed the redhead fucker.

That’s what being in-love meant.

Love meant being hurt and being broken. Love meant being whole and complete.

It meant all those mushy feelings.

Love was a very confusing thing but Mickey knew he wouldn’t be anywhere without it.

Mickey tried and failed to avoid it, deny it, and hide from it. He grew into himself, grew into a man, because of love. He could admit now what he was too sacred to admit before.

He loved Ian Gallagher.

He loved the fucker enough to come out and get beaten the shit for, enough to walk-away from his scam marriage, enough to understand, accept, and forgive Ian for all of his mistakes, and flaws, and transgressions, just like Ian did for him through the years.

He loved _his_ stupid fucking Gallagher, even if Ian was the most emotional of the bunch. To Mickey, his heart was the best thing about him, his fragility made him the strongest, and his vulnerability made him the most resilient.

Mickey learned to fall in-love, experience love, _feel_ love.

He thought of love and saw Ian Gallagher.

Ian face when he asked for the redhead to wait. Ian didn’t need to say it, say anything. He might barely resemble the boy that Mickey fell in-love with but he still had the same expressive green eyes which never changed. Mickey heard the unspoken words—Ian’s reply.

Now, he had a word to finally describe love.

Love was bittersweet.

**Author's Note:**

> Still pretty new to this fandom. I haven't, at all, watched a full episode of Shameless. I'm just sticking to the Gallavich clips on youtube, so this might not be so accurate. Given this, I'm still very shy in participating in this event because I am very insecure with my writing lately. It's not really been a good time. That being said, I hope that you like the stories that I will be posting. I've got them 6/7 written up and I'm working on the last story today. Thank you so much for reading! 
> 
> If you have a prompt or an idea, you can [INSPIRE ME](http://arh581958.tumblr.com/submit) on tumblr. Or [TALK TO ME](http://arh581958.tumblr.com/ask)~
> 
> As always, **kudos/comments/bookmarks** are all appreciated by this author. I take comments as extra-kudos and I _do_ read the bookmark tags (some are really fun).


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